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They make a little set of plastic gauges that you can slip in if there's some exposed conductor to get them around. I got a set years ago, but they're not as helpful as you might think. The lugs smash the conductor into a bit of an oval. Here's one such gauge http://www.professionalequipment.com...s=wire%20gauge The actual old-school Brown and Sharpe wire gauges are metal.

__________________One reason not to give DIY advice:
Catch a man a fish and you can sell it to him.
Teach a man to fish and you’ve ruined a good business opportunity.

What I'm looking for is something bigger for #4awg and larger. Needed something on the last quote where feeders were suppling sub-panels from a meter base/disco panel and the outer jackets were not visible. Needed to know the wire gauge so I could calculate the feeders size to each unit. So, I took my tape measure and just measured the diameter and went to home depot around the corner and came up with #2 conductors. Guess, that is not the best way to determine wire size.

I see plastic calipers at these traveling tent tool sales places a lot for all of two or three dollars. I think you could measure the conductor with one of those plastic calipers, and match it up with the chart of conductor diameters.

__________________One reason not to give DIY advice:
Catch a man a fish and you can sell it to him.
Teach a man to fish and you’ve ruined a good business opportunity.